Amazing Short Film: One Hour of San Diego Surfing Time-Collapsed to Two Minutes

This video was created from one hour of source footage shot from a bluff in San Diego the morning of Jan 21, 2014. I was interested in exploring the manipulation of water and to see how the movements and patterns from surfing interact. Watching surfing typically happens in one or two ways: in films/videos or in person standing on a pier, beach or bluff. In most surf films, the riders are so talented and the waves are so good it becomes an abstraction from the average viewer’s/surfer’s experience at an average break. On the other hand, watching in person can be very slow and depending on the swell there may be long stretches when nothing happens at all. This video is a playful attempt to split the difference and reveal just how much can actually happen in an hour in an otherwise nondescript surf spot with non professional riders. There are no CG elements, these are all real surfers and real waves with the time separating them removed. The video does not contain every wave that passed during the hour; I picked the best rides but otherwise tried to maintain chronology.

The San Diego Studies is a series of short videos that collapse time to reveal otherwise unobservable rhythms and movement in San Diego. The project is supported my MOPA San Diego and the San Diego Foundation. For more information about this video please visit cysfilm.com and mopa.org